Toby Perkins has called for faster climate adaptation after researchers estimated that extreme heat caused more than 50,000 deaths in European urban areas during summer 2026.
The estimate, produced by researchers at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, covers 854 cities between June and August. It is modelled rather than a count taken directly from death certificates.
Researchers estimated that roughly two-thirds of the deaths were attributable to human-caused climate change. The cities studied represent about 40 per cent of the population in the countries examined, so the figure is not a complete European total.
Perkins, who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, said the findings exposed the full scale of this summer's heat deaths, with the UK one of the five countries in Europe with the most heat-related deaths.
He said the findings underlined the need both to decarbonise rapidly and to prepare for climate effects that are already here.
He said adaptation must support those most at risk, including older and unwell people and those from poorer backgrounds, and act to prevent the collapse of infrastructure that keeps vulnerable people safe in the heat.
The committee's new climate-adaptation inquiry will examine those issues, placing public health, resilience and unequal exposure to extreme weather at the centre of its work.
